


Home From the Hill

by fhsa_archivist



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-24
Updated: 2004-06-24
Packaged: 2019-02-05 17:12:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12798762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhsa_archivist/pseuds/fhsa_archivist
Summary: Withheld by author's choice





	Home From the Hill

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

Comments: This was the first appearance of any of my ST writing in print (cyber or otherwise). It fits into my "Trefoil" universe, in which ST II: TWOK and everything after it never happened. David Marcus does not exist. Khan is still on that wretched planet. Spock does not die saving the Enterprise from the Genesis wave. There be no whales here. 

Honest and thoughtful criticism is appreciated, whether delivered publicly or privately. 

 

 

 

To tell the story of Jim and Spock and me, I have to start at the end. Funny, that. I love stories, and would never think to read the last page of one first. But in this case it helps to understand how it all ended before dealing with the bizarre circumstances that brought us together in the first place. 

 

It was only a few months ago, Christmas season. San Diego usually has a gentle, warm climate, but last December it was quite chilly, though not nearly cold enough to remind me of the Decembers I'd experienced as a child in Maine. Spock was attached to Starfleet Command on temporary shore assignment, handling a series of thorny problems as a kind of one-man task force. I had just finished writing the end-of-term evaluations on the sixty Academy cadets assigned to me. And Jim was home, had been home for months. He'd refused retirement, said no to a disability pension. But he couldn't avoid being placed on medical leave. Because he was dying. 

 

We'd seen the long, slow decline, watched as the strength ebbed from him day by day. Then came the day when he couldn't get out of bed. Then the day when he couldn't feed himself. And then the day when he barely responded to us, never sleeping but not really awake either, looking as if he were focused entirely on something very deep inside him. We knew it wouldn't be much longer, and we left him only to eat, to bathe, to relieve ourselves. Spock even meditated in the chair next to the bed. 

 

On the third night, it was well after midnight when Jim stirred. "Time. Time," he said. 

 

I was the first to reach his side. "What is it, Jim?" I asked. He was more alert than he'd been all day, but he looked so fragile, I was almost afraid to touch him. 

 

"Night?" 

 

"Yes, it's night time. It's late," I said automatically. How I knew that, I wasn't certain, since I hadn't looked at the chrono. But the silence had that quality of utter stillness it sometimes gets in the middle of the night. 

 

Spock joined us. Jim looked to him and then back to me. I could see him struggling to get the words out. "Want to. See. The stars." 

 

"I'll open the curtains," I said. 

 

"No!" I was startled by his sudden vehemence. "Go. Outside." 

 

Spock and I locked eyes across the bed. There was a long pause as we just looked at each other. Jim's ragged breathing assaulted the stillness of the night. He hadn't asked to go outside for days. Why now? I could tell that Spock didn't have the answer to that question either, but he didn't seem unutterably opposed to the idea. Finally I kind of shrugged at him, as if to say, 'Why not?' Spock nodded slightly in agreement. 

 

"The patio," Spock murmured. "Get some blankets." 

 

"Shall I call Dr. McCoy?" I asked, pulling what we needed from a chest at the foot of the bed. Len was asleep in our guest room, where he'd been every night for a week. If Jim needed anything, Len didn't want him to have to wait for even the fifteen minutes it would take to walk to the transporter station and get himself beamed over. 

 

"Let him sleep." 

 

Spock leaned down and caressed Jim's cheek so tenderly that my breath caught for a moment. I knew he was noting Jim's gauntness, the bluish cast to his lips, the struggle for every breath. And I also knew that none of that mattered one bit. To Spock, Jim is still beautiful, I thought. Even now. Just as he is to me. 

 

"Yes, Jim," Spock said quietly, "we'll go outside and watch the stars." He turned back the bedcovers and took Jim into his arms. Spock is stronger than any human, but still, lifting Jim was easier than it should have been. He was wasted, so frail. The tearing feeling in my chest was almost more than I could stand. 

 

Spock laid Jim oh-so-gently on top of the quilt and, wrapping him in it, picked him up once again. Jim leaned his head on Spock's shoulder as Spock settled that frail body carefully against his chest. And then I couldn't watch anymore, so I went out to the patio and made a nest of blankets on our favorite lounge chair. 

 

For all the time Jim spent in space, you'd think he'd get tired of watching the stars, but he never did. I often joined him on the patio for a while in the evening, Spock less frequently. One way or another, we'd spent a lot of time together on that chair, two at a time or all three of us. I think a part of me knew that this was the last chance we'd have. 

 

I felt . . . hyperaware, as if every image and feeling were being burned into me for all time. And so, even though we both were shielding, I somehow knew that Spock, too, believed that we were together for the last time. I have never seen anyone touch another as tenderly as Spock touched Jim that night, as if he were the most precious treasure in the galaxy. Well, I guess he was, wasn't he? He settled Jim carefully in the center of the chair and then laid himself down at Jim's left. 

 

The night was very clear and the stars were bright and sharp. There was a chill in the air, but little wind. I curled myself up on the other side and pulled the blankets around us. Then I reached down for Jim's hand. 

 

"Are you warm enough, Jim?" 

 

"Mm." 

 

"Are you in pain?" A slight shake of the head - no. 

 

Even in the dark, I could see his eyes, wide and bright, as they intently scanned the night sky. I could hear and feel the effort with which he drew every breath. What did he seek there, in the heavens? There was no rest in him, no peace. 

 

Spock reached up again to Jim's face, caressing his forehead and cheek. "Jim," he said, his voice low and gentle, "Do you remember the poem you asked about? The one about the sailor? You couldn't recall the words." 

 

"I remember." Jim's voice was barely a whisper. I had to strain to hear it. 

 

"Claire found it for you. Would you like to hear it?" 

 

"Yes." 

 

Oh no, I thought, god no, I can't stand to say those words now. Jim looked up at me expectantly and I opened my mouth once, twice, but no sound emerged. And then I felt Spock's hand warm in mine. //It is all right. Let me.// He recited the two brief stanzas: 

 

Under the wide and starry sky, 

Dig the grave and let me lie. 

Glad did I live and gladly die, 

And I laid me down with a will. 

 

This be the verse you grave for me: 

Here he lies where he longed to be; 

Home is the sailor, home from sea, 

And the hunter home from the hill. 

 

His voice was steady, his control impeccable, and for all of it, I knew his heart was breaking. I almost lost it then. I clenched my teeth so tightly that my jaw ached. Jim closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. His face was turned to the sky, but I didn't think he was looking at the stars this time. Rather, he seemed to be focused deep within himself. 

 

"Not glad. Don't want to leave you," he said. 

 

And when I heard those words, so full of longing, somehow I was released to speak. Now it was my turn to reach out and touch his hair, his lips. I leaned over so that I could look at him. "Jim. We love you. We don't want you to go either, but it's time, and we're ready." I looked up at Spock and we both acknowledged, wordlessly, the lie. We would never be ready. "We know you're tired. It's time to rest." 

 

"Claire." Suddenly his eyes were even brighter, and full. "Love you." 

 

"I've never doubted it. I love you too." I leaned down and kissed him softly on the lips. His tears spilled over, and I wiped his eyes. "It's all right, my love." 

 

"Spock," he said then. I could feel his hand move as if to reach for him, but then it was as if the effort was too great. 

 

"I am here, t'hy'la," Spock said. He put his hand over Jim's. 

 

"Never learned how to. Go easy." 

 

"I know," Spock said. I did too. It was that same fighting spirit that had kept them both alive so many times against impossible odds. Now Jim didn't know how to turn away from the struggle for life, much as he might wish to, much as he understood that it was time. 

 

"I love you, Spock." Jim was crying again, easily and silently. 

 

"As I love thee. Always." And now it was Spock's turn to brush away the tears. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if deciding what to do next, and then his hand continued its caress, tracing over tear-dimmed eyes, hollow cheek and too-prominent bone. He brushed back the lock of hair that I would always remember as golden, even though now it was dull and streaked with gray. Later, he told me that he had longed to bend down and kiss away Jim's tears, taste the salt, feel the sweep of our beloved's lashes against his lips. But he knew that if he did so, he would be undone. 

 

"So tired," Jim whispered. 

 

"I know," Spock said again. 

 

"Help me rest." 

 

I didn't know what to do to help him. I stroked his forehead and then leaned down and kissed him where my fingers had been. 

 

When I looked up, I saw that Spock was watching me, his eyes gentle and so very sad, and there was something else there, too, I wasn't sure just what. For a moment I couldn't breathe, and then I thought I'd surely lose all control, that it would take very little to make me scream and wail and curse the God who would take our bondmate from us. Spock must have seen it too, because he reached out again and laid his hand on my arm. Our link flared with the contact, and before he had a chance to strengthen his shields I sensed something of Spock's battle with his own rage and fear and grief. I felt myself rock with the force of it. 

 

*'Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.' How odd that I should be the one feeling the rage now, while Jim seeks the way to go gently. I am Vulcan. I must control. My t'hy'la requires my calm presence. Both of my bondmates need me now.* 

 

It should have made things worse for me, knowing that Spock was in the grip of such powerful emotions, but somehow it didn't. I felt less - alone, I guess. And after a moment I could feel Spock regain his equilibrium, but I knew it was only a thin veneer. 

 

"Help me rest," Jim whispered again. "Don't know how." 

 

Spock closed his eyes and shuddered, but then he opened his eyes and reached for Jim's face again, positioning the fingers of one hand on the meld points. I was afraid, suddenly, and he knew it right away. "Do not worry," he said to me. "A light touch only. I will not become ensnared. You come too." With his free hand he took my hand and completed the circuit among us. 

 

We both slipped in easily. Though Jim's body was too worn out to show it, his mind was agitated, unable to relax despite his overwhelming exhaustion. Spock began soothing him, and little by little we could feel Jim begin to release his stranglehold on life. 

 

//Hold me.// 

 

I knew what he wanted. It was a holding we had enjoyed several times in the past few months, in this very chair, watching the stars together. Spock drew Jim into the curve of one arm, pillowing his head against his shoulder. I scrambled around as carefully as I could and settled into Spock's other arm, my head too on his shoulder, turning slightly to face Jim as he faced toward me. I wanted to take some of his weight, to feel fully involved in this embrace, so I settled Jim's legs over my own. 

 

The air was colder now, and the sky was very dark. I pulled the blankets around us again. I knew that this was the end, just as I knew that there was nothing for me but what was here: this chair, these men, the stars above. This was my life, this my place. For a minute, an hour, a day - as long as it took. I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else. 

 

Spock held us both closely. I could feel Jim relax into the warmth and comfort we offered. His breathing became less labored and shallower, and we drifted together in a place where there was no yesterday or tomorrow or even today, no time at all, only the touch of bodies and the beating of hearts and the soft sound of each breath. And through it all my eyes were wide open, they never left Jim's face, because as much as it hurt to watch him die, I couldn't bear to miss an instant of his life. 

 

The sky grew lighter, dawn close. And Jim opened his eyes, looking up once more at the fading stars, and smiled a smile of such radiance that I couldn't help but say, "Oh," in a tone of pure wonder. And then, "Spock." Because I felt, in a moment so swift it might have gone unnoticed, Jim's soul pass through us both, filled with love and, finally, peace. 

 

And then he was gone. 

 

At the living room fireplace, Spock built the wood fire to which we treated ourselves on special occasions. Christmas Eve had always been one of those times. Even though the holiday had little meaning for him, he knew it was important to his human bondmates. I curled up on the sofa and watched him, hoping the fire would take the chill out of the air. I hadn't been really warm since- 

 

The funeral had been six days earlier. Many of Jim's friends and shipmates had been there. Hikaru Sulu, my closest friend, had been a special comfort; he had requested compassionate leave to attend, putting his own ship in the hands of his First Officer and returning alone to Earth by shuttlecraft. McCoy had barely left Spock's side throughout that long day, though whether for his own benefit or out of a desire to support his friend, I couldn't be sure. Chekov and Uhura held one another together through a service that had turned out to be rather more emotional than I'm sure Spock would have wished. Certainly he would not have chosen to repeat the words of that poem had he known they would evoke such a strong response in the listeners. But as difficult as I know the tears were for Spock, they were helpful to the rest of us. 

 

I thought back further, to the morning of Jim's death. Spock and I sat for a while with him, the three of us together for the last time. Then Spock went to wake Len, asleep in the guest bedroom. While he made the necessary calls, Spock and I performed our final duty to our bondmate in an ancient tradition common to both our cultures. 

 

We washed Jim, gently and slowly and with a certain reverence, and dressed him in his uniform. Not the dress uniform, which he had never worn with anything but distaste, but his everyday shirt and jacket and pants and his favorite boots. And it was only after he was dressed and combed and his limbs arranged, in all respects outfitted in a manner befitting his rank and station, that something broke in me and I clung to his booted feet and bent over his body and wept. 

 

Spock's own tears had come days later, in our bed where everything had always been accepted and acceptable. I was glad to be strong for him, as he had been for me. We'd always been good at that, he and I. He cried, and we cried together, and we made love with a fierce need for physical joining that I don't think either of us had felt in many weeks. 

 

The pain was still there, but a little less for us every day. Spock's presence helped me, and I knew that mine helped him. The freshly severed connections with Jim still felt to both of us like open wounds, tender and raw, but there had never been the unrelieved agony that was so common when one of a bonded pair died. 

 

Spock finished with the fire and came to sit on the sofa. We sat together, close but not touching, and watched the flames for a while. Spock had the look of someone who was working up to saying something. He is not one who uses conversation as a means of thinking out loud, so I've become used to waiting until his thought is fully formed. It doesn't bother me. Spock's silence is usually a comfortable thing. 

 

"I find that I have been thinking a great deal recently about our union ceremony," he said finally. I was surprised, and I guess it showed. He explained, "Not so much the ceremony itself, as the words spoken by the officiant. Do you remember them?" 

 

I remembered many things about the ceremony: the beauty of the autumn day; our friends and family all around us; the look on Spock's face as he watched his father join the gathering, finally reconciled to his son's unconventional union; the rings, braided of gold and silver and platinum in such a way that you could scarcely see where one metal left off and the other began. But what the minister had said? "Not really," I said. "But I'll bet you do." 

 

"Yes, of course," he said, not boasting of his eidetic memory but simply stating the fact. "I do not know why I take comfort in reflecting on those words, or why it seems that the day of our marriage is presently uppermost in my mind. Perhaps it is because at our last anniversary, you and Jim helped me to understand those words as I think I never had before." 

 

Our anniversary. The weeks leading up to it had been a terrible, black time for all of us, locked individually into our anger and grief over Jim's illness. Spock had gone the farthest away, had been the last to return. On our anniversary Jim and I had finally been able to call him home. But I couldn't recall having said or done anything on that night that had to do with our union ceremony. 

 

"I'd like to hear the words again, if you can repeat them," I said finally. Spock nodded his head in acquiescence. 

 

"As you may recall," he said, "her comments were extensive." I nodded, amused. Len, in his usual blunt way, had said after the ceremony, "I'll bet she never shuts up." 

 

"I have meditated from time to time on one aspect or another of her remarks," Spock said. "Those meditations have been - most challenging." 

 

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "Because she spoke of emotions," I said. 

 

"Yes." 

 

Again, he was silent. A log shifted in the fireplace and we watched a shower of sparks rise up the chimney. 

 

"This has been the subject of my most recent meditation," he said finally. "She said, 'The highest privilege in marriage is to help bear the burdens - physical, spiritual, and emotional - of one's mates. Today you have spoken vows to love and support one another, to be each other's refuge and strength in sickness and health, for richer and poorer, in joy and sorrow, in victory and in defeat, throughout life and even unto death. Those vows cannot truly be honored unless each can accept freely what is offered so freely.'" 

 

Spock paused in his narrative for a moment, and one corner of his mouth quirked up in a tiny smile. "At that moment she looked at us in such a way that I was reminded of T'Pau," he said. "I was impressed. It is difficult to present such a formidable appearance when one is of a stature such as hers." 

 

I couldn't help but laugh. The Reverend Maxine Chan - or 'Maxie' as she is known to nearly everyone - hardly lived up to her first name. I am not a tall woman, but the top of Maxie's head, as I recalled, barely reached my nose. I felt a warm rush of gratitude as Spock quirked the other corner of his mouth as well. The Vulcan equivalent of uproarious laughter - I rejoiced in it, and we just sat for a bit, both of us enjoying the moment. Then Spock's expression grew serious again, and he continued. 

 

"Then she said, 'None of you, I think, is accustomed to accepting what you each willingly would give the others. To accept help is an affirmation of the trust you place in one another, a reaffirmation of the vows you have taken today. So I pray that you remember always that by granting your mates the privilege of sharing not only the good, but also the bad and even, sometimes, the downright ugly, you are not defiling your union but, rather, honoring it.'" 

 

He paused again, and I slipped my hand into his and waited for the rest. It was never easy for Spock to speak of feelings. He couldn't be pushed into it, I'd learned long ago. One simply had to wait. So I did, and presently he continued. 

 

"You and Jim understood those words much earlier than I. I regret that my failure to understand them, and my inability to ask for help from you and Jim, led to our estrangement. I wish to assure you, however, that I believe I have finally learned the lesson that Maxie attempted to impart." 

 

The door chime rang. We looked at each other for a moment, and I silently cursed the timing and finally said, "Hold that thought," and got up to answer it. 

 

Bad timing or not, it was good to see Len again. He hadn't come around since the funeral, and I had wondered if it wasn't because being around Spock brought back memories of Jim that were too painful just yet. There was a weariness in Len that seemed to penetrate to his very soul, but I had a sense that he had reached the bottom of his despair and had started, slowly, to climb his way back out. 

 

We hugged each other and I brought him along to the living room. 

 

"Hello, Spock. Nice fire. Smells good," he said. 

 

"Jim always enjoyed a wood fire," Spock replied in that deliberate way of his. He looked at me, and in the moment before he turned his eyes back to Len I saw him choose not to hide the pain he felt but instead to experience it, to let Len see it as it rolled over and through him. He chose to share. Yes, I thought, moved by the courage he had shown in breaking the habits imposed by decades of Vulcan discipline - he has finally understood Maxie's lesson. 

After 

all, are the unspoken pledges of friendship so very different than the spoken vows of marriage? 

 

McCoy rested his hand on Spock's arm. I could tell he had been touched by Spock's openness. "Yes, he did," he answered with a wistful smile. "And I think he's enjoying it now." 

 

And he was rewarded with that trademark Spock smile, the tiny quirk of the lips, a deep warmth in the eyes, only readable to those who know him best. Len stepped closer and wrapped his arms around his friend - Spock wasn't the only courageous one this night - and I nearly gasped aloud as I watched those strong Vulcan arms embrace him in return. "Merry Christmas, Spock," Len murmured. 

 

Then I was crying, smiling through the tears running silently down my cheeks. I couldn't hear Spock's reply to Len, if he made one at all, because my head was filled with a roaring rush of joy. Jim was with us and would always be with us. He had loved us and he had taught us by his fearless example. At the end of his life he had trusted us completely, asked for our help, accepted that help with grace and dignity. He had honored our union, as I knew that Spock and I would continue to honor it, and him. 

 

Jim's presence at that moment was so strong that I almost, almost could see him standing with us. If I had been alone I think I would have spoken out loud, but instead I let the words echo in my mind, clear and strong. *Rest easy, Jim. Spock is okay. Len is okay. 

 

And I am too. You live on in us, and in our love. And we'll be fine.* For the first time in months, I believed it. And as I crossed the room to put my arms around them, I could almost hear Jim reply: 

 

*Home is the sailor, home from sea / and the hunter home from the hill.* 

 

REQUIEM 

Under the wide and starry sky, 

Dig the grave and let me lie. 

Glad did I live and gladly die, 

And I laid me down with a will. 

This be the verse you grave for me: 

Here he lies where he longed to be; 

Home is the sailor, home from sea, 

And the hunter home from the hill. 

 

\- Robert Louis Stevenson


End file.
